Health status indicators

Introduction: Family and friends of seriously ill patients are key partners in providing support and health care at home, managing relationships with clinicians, and navigating complex health care systems. Becoming a knowledgeable, confident, and effective caregiver is a developmental process we term 'caregiver activation' and could be facilitated by clinicians equipped with suitable tools. Managing Your Loved One’s Health (MYLOH) is a new tool to identify gaps in caregivers' knowledge, skills, and access to clinical and personal support.

There is wide variation in reported impact of caring on caregiver well-being, and often a negative appraisal of caregiving. Researchers are beginning to question the robustness of the evidence base on which negative appraisals are based. The present study aimed to draw on data from a population-representative sample to describe the health, quality of life and impact of caring of informal caregivers of people with an intellectual disability.

Background: Increasing symptoms and activity restriction associated with COPD progression greatly impact on the lives of their informal caregivers, who play a vital role in maintaining their health. An understanding of this impact is important for clinicians to support caregivers and maintain a viable patient environment at home.

Purpose/Objectives: To explore whether repetitive negative thinking (RNT) mediates the pathway between subscales of caregiver burden and depressive symptoms. Design: Cross-sectional pilot study. Setting: Bone marrow unit at the University of Louisville Hospital in Kentucky and caregiver support organizations in Louisville. Sample: 49 current cancer caregivers who were primarily spouses or partners of individuals with lymphoma or leukemia and provided care for a median of 30 hours each week for 12 months.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore caregiving self-efficacy as a mediator for the association between family functioning and caregiving appraisal of dementia family caregivers in Taiwan. Method: This study adopted a cross-sectional correlational design. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 115 dyads of dementia patients and family caregivers from the outpatient neurological clinics of two hospitals in northern Taiwan.

Purpose of the Study: Numerous adverse physiological and psychological effects of family caregiving are documented in the literature. However, there is little knowledge about family caregivers after caregiving ends. The purpose of this study is to examine the health of former family caregivers and describe their experiences following the death of a care recipient with dementia. Methods: Eight former family caregivers were recruited using convenience sampling.

In Turkey, the high incidences of stomach and oesophageal cancers in East and high incidence of stomach cancer in Northeast regions are remarkable. This study was conducted to identify homecare needs of patients with stomach cancer and their caregivers and the effect of family supportive nursing care on the quality of life of patients and families. The patient and his/her caregiver were assessed with respect to their daily life activities and NANDA was used for the identified nursing diagnoses, NIC for the appropriate interventions and NOC for assessment of the results.

Research shows the stressful demands of caregiving to older family members can have negative effects on physical health. The effects on physical health may include: immune system functioning, heart rate reactivity, raised blood pressure levels, and increased risk of mortality among older spousal caregivers. Gender differences in caregivers' outcomes exist because, compared with male caregivers, female caregivers face higher levels of caregiving stressors, have fewer social resources, and report lower levels of psychological and physical health.

Aim.  This article reports on trends in health outcomes for family caregivers of hip-fractured patients and the effects of social support on these outcomes.

Background.  Little is known about the impact of caregiving on the health outcomes of family caregivers of patients with hip fracture.

Informal carers represent a substantial proportion of the population in many countries and health is an important factor in their capacity to continue care-giving. This study investigated the impact of care-giving on the mental and physical health of informal carers, taking account of contextual factors, including family and work. We examined health changes from before care-giving commenced to 2 and 4 years after, using longitudinal data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. The sample comprised 424 carers and 424 propensity score-matched non-carers.